


Be Fruitful III

by Daegaer



Series: Be Fruitful [3]
Category: Jewish Legend & Lore, Jewish Scripture & Legend, תנ"ך | Tanakh
Genre: Angels, Collection: Purimgifts Day 3, Divine wrath, F/M, Fire From Heaven, Midrash, Sodom, Talmud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 09:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1299196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Fruitful III

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TLara (larissabernstein)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/larissabernstein/gifts).



When death came to the Cities of the Plain it was sudden and dreadful. Thammah and Paltith ran beside the guests of their father, who had taken them boldly by the hand, as if they were entitled to touch girls of another man's family. Their parents were not as swift, though they too were dragged along in the implacable grasp of their guests.

"Please, please," Idit their mother gasped, as terrible sounds began behind them, and the screams of their neighbours rose up to Heaven. "We have two other daughters, married to men of the city, please, let my lords save them also."

"There is not time, lady," one of the men said, politely, and Thammah heard beneath his voice the crackle of flames, and noted how his chest did not heave in the desperate search for air that might be expected of a man who had sprinted so far and so fast.

"But – but, my daughters –" Idit said, beginning to turn, to look in horror at the place of her elder daughters' destruction.

"Woman, do not look!" the other man cried, but it was too late. "Quick," he said to his companion, seizing Lot as he tried to see why his wife had suddenly stopped speaking, "we must bring these children of haAdam from this place without delay."

His companion renewed his unyielding grip on the hands of Thammah and Paltith and pulled them close so that they could not crane round to look for their mother.

"Now, daughters of haAdam," he said, " _run_."

The men left them high in the mountains in a cave, which they swore would be safe from the destruction which Heaven was raining down upon the world. One moment the men were there as Lot stared at the ground in misery, and Thammah and Paltith looked around the cave, hoping to see a way out in the blackness of its depths, should the fury of Heaven crash its way up the rocks to them. Then the next moment, as they looked around they were alone, their father still trapped in sorrow and the men vanished from their sight.

"Father, they have left us, how can that be?" Paltith said.

"They were angels sent by the Lord Yahveh to deliver us from the destruction of the city," Lot said dully. "We should give thanks."

"They delivered neither our sisters nor Idit our mother," Thammah said. "It seems to me they must have tarried on the road to Sodom and had no time to carry out their appointed duty, or cared little about their task, thinking, _If we bring but one human alive from the city shall we not be judged obedient servants?_ " Then the anger left her and she slumped upon the ground, weeping, "Oh, my mother, my mother."

In the morning, they looked out from the mouth of the cave, down towards the plain and its great cities. The air over the cities was thick with smoke, and they were burning. The proud walls of the cities were cast down and their ashlar-dressed stones tumbled as if they were nothing but a child's toy, now kicked aside by men. The great houses, so rich and happy, were utterly gone, scant blackened beams and heat-cracked stones marking the places where once they stood. From Sodom to Zoar the ground was churned and blackened, marked with great craters, as if a heedless boy had flung a huge stone into drying mud. No living thing could be seen, and all the plants of the field were burnt where they had been. 

Lot tore his clothing and fell to the ground, pouring dust upon his head as Thammah and Paltith rent their veils and lifted up their voices in grief.

At last they could lament no more, and Lot clambered wearily to his feet, and turned away from what was outside the cave.

"He promised he should never again destroy the world through a flood, so he has come upon us with fire," he said in a low voice. "My daughters, the world has ended and we are alone. Let us stop up the mouth of the cave, and lie down and die." So saying he lay upon the floor and covered his head with his cloak and wept.

Thammah and Paltith, however, were young and did not wish to die. They looked out upon the destruction of the earth for many hours, standing in silence, hand-in-hand. At last, Thammah turned to her sister and said in a quiet voice,

"My sister, the world _has_ ended, that is clear, but are we not alive? We have been brought through this for a purpose. It is in my heart that we have been spared, like those that came through the great flood, so that humans might not perish utterly from the face of the earth. Are we not new-come to marriageable age? We must become the new mothers of all the living."

"But there is no one left alive to marry us," Paltith said, her voice still thin from shock. "And our mother would not be there to sing at the wedding feast!" She wept anew as her sister held her tight.

"Paltith," Thammah whispered, "this is a new age, there are no rules yet, for we are the only people. When haAdam and Hawwah walked upon the face of the earth, did their children not perforce marry each other?" She held Paltith tighter still so her sister could not squirm away from what she would say. "So it must be with us – Lot our father must be as a husband to us, so that we may fill up the world with people once more."

"No! How can you say such a thing?" Paltith said, and gasped as her sister forced her to the edge of the cave.

"I would not have said it before today! Were we not happy? Did we not live in a great city, with generous and kind parents? And now our sisters are dead, our mother is lost, and our father lies in despair! The Lord Yahveh has punished the pride and arrogance of the cities built by men and it falls to the last women to preserve the seed of haAdam and Hawwah upon the earth. Do not fear, my sister, I will do it first, so that you may see you do not need to be afraid."

"Father will not agree to do this," Paltith said.

Thammah looked from her sister's face out to what lay beyond their small illusion of safety. "That is but a small matter," she said, as if quelling the fears of a child.

Paltith shuddered, and drew her torn veil across her face so that she did not need to see what lay in the eyes of her sister.

As the shadows of the day lengthened, Thammah searched through the provisions their guests had hurriedly wrapped in a sheet. There were loaves enough for a week, if they were careful, and dried meat, and – she found it in her to laugh drily – two full skins of wine. 

"They saw, no doubt, we would have need of these," she said. She laid out a sparse meal and sat to serve her family. "Father, Paltith, come and eat."

"I do not wish to eat," Lot said, as if he were waking from nightmares to nightmares. "A man should not take bread from his children's mouths. You eat, my daughters."

"If you will not eat bread, my father, then drink wine. It will help you sleep more soundly," Thammah said, thrusting a piece of bread into her sister's hands as Paltith opened her mouth to speak. Paltith looked at her reproachfully, then sat in silence, eating her portion of the loaf. Thammah brought the wine to her father and watched how, after the first reluctant mouthful, he drank eagerly. None of them had had anything to eat or drink since they had fled their home and dust and ashes caked their faces and the insides of their mouths. At last he returned the skin to her, so that she and Paltith could also slake their thirst.

Thammah watched her father, seeing how the wine went quickly to his head with no bread in his belly, and she found she had squeezed her hands tight into fists, her nails cutting crescents into her palms, though she had not squeezed tight enough to draw blood. It was a sign for her, she thought, that she would not see her womb's blood at the next crescent moon. She would succeed.

"Lie down and sleep, my father," she said. "We will all sleep now."

She and Paltith sat quietly until Lot seemed uneasily asleep, shifting and muttering unhappily in his corner of the cave. Thammah hefted the wine skin and drank a long mouthful of what was left, for courage.

"Finish it, Paltith," she said, "It will warm you."

"Thammah, do not do this," Paltith whispered as she rose, taking her by the arm. "Let us think about this matter again, you and I."

"There is nothing to think about," Thammah murmured, and stroked her sister's cheek. "We have already used half the wine, we cannot waste what we have been given. Do not fear, my sister. We are not doing wrong. We will be the mothers of nations."

So saying she straightened and loosened her girdle. She put back her shoulders like a soldier who sees the captain's eye fall upon him and took a deep breath. "I am the mother of all life," she said, very quietly, as a child speaks in the dark to comfort itself, and she stepped, lightly and stealthily, towards the sleeping form of her father.

 

_Lot's Daughter's_ by Lucas van Leyden  
[source](http://joedonaghy65.blogspot.com)

**Author's Note:**

> The names of Lot's daughters have been taken from the 16th century CE _Book of Jasher_ , while the name of his wife is an ancient midrashic tradition. The rabbis suggest that Lot and his wife had two older daughter who were already married - Idit looked back at Sodom in the hopes that her older daughters had managed to flee the city's destruction, but was turned to salt either because she saw God (something no mortal could withstand) or because she had inadvertently alerted the mob to their guests' presence when she went to borrow extra salt to cook their dinner.
> 
> Midrashic tradition treats the daughters' successful plan to become pregnant by their father with perhaps surprising leniency, given how hard it is on their mother. They are genuinely seen as believing the world had been all but destroyed, and that it was their duty to repopulate it. Lot's daughters become the ancestors of the Ammonites and the Moabites and thus - as David was descended from Ruth the Moabite - ultimately enable the Davidic royal dynasty to exist.


End file.
